Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) - Simu Liu

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

This isn’t the first time Woody Harrelson and Simu Liu have gotten up close and personal! In this episode, you’ll hear how they worked together in some pretty tight quarters on the upcoming feature film “Last Breath.” Simu tells Woody and Ted about his family’s journey from Harbin, China to Canada, and how he later went from being an unhappy accountant to becoming a Marvel superhero and Ken in “Barbie.” Bonus: Ted brings up Woody’s silent but deadly past.   Like watching your podcasts? Visit http://youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes.

So when you got that call, you must have just been over the moon, huh? Yeah, I cried into my pillow for a long time. It was like, you're not going to get more high stakes than that, you know? Absolutely amazing. Welcome back to Where Everybody Knows Your Name. Today's guest is a true superhero. Many of you know Simu Liu as the star of Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings, in which he led Marvel's first all-Asian cast.

Or maybe you know him from the fantastic sitcom Kim's Convenience, or Barbie, in which he memorably played one of the Kens. I was excited to meet Simu for the first time through Woody. They worked together on a film called Last Breath that you'll be seeing in the future. It's based on a true story about a deep sea diver, and it was really cool to hear these guys talk about how much fun they had together on the set in Malta. I'm surprised, actually, they got any work done. Anyway, let's get into it. Meet Simu Liu.

Simu, thank you so much for being here. You're so welcome. It's such an honor, mostly for you, Ted. Woody, less so. I understand. I wear thin very quickly, so I'll catch up to Woody in a second. Can we make an agreement, though? I just heard before we started that you guys have a routine that when one of you says a joke that's really kind of lame, you go into this mock hysterical laughter. Can we agree to do this in this podcast? Absolutely. Definitely. And maybe going forward.

You just got to have your laugh in life and uh but simu and and myself and finn cole who's also in the movie with this uh well i don't know how you could have much more fun than we had we really had a fun time and some of it was in very tight quarters it was it was it was kind of i mean it was kind of one of those situations where the set itself was so constricting. And those, you know, it's like, I feel like those scenarios kind of breed the best humor. Because you just realize you got to make a joke to get through. You know, because you're cramped in and like a bajillion things are happening around you. And you're like, oh, my God.

And that situation is because you were filming last breath which is a movie about it's about uh it's about a team of uh commercial divers that work at the bottom of the north sea the north sea yep and uh it's based on a true story where um you know basically the whole concept of the, they're called saturation divers, is that they work 100 meters, 300 feet below sea level. And in order for you to operate at that pressure, you have to, you basically have to live in a saturation chamber that's no bigger, really wider than like,

I would say half this room. Right. There's no, you know wider than, I would say, half this room. You have very little space, very little privacy. You're like living on a space station, and you live aboard the ship in a little tiny saturation chamber. And then when you go down to work on the seafloor, you climb into this little tiny thing called a bell, and they lower that bell down and it's all pressurized so that by the time you get down 300 feet below sea level,

you're already kind of pressurized. When you say that you, they live in there. So four weeks they stay there. So our movie is, you know, it's, it's a true story of a diver that gets caught. What happened on this particular day, 10 ago was that there was a diver, Chris Lemons, who was out and his co-diver, Dave Yuasa, were both underwater working. And the ship that they were tethered to starts to lose navigation because there's a storm, it starts drifting, and it starts to pull the divers and their umbilicals. And so Chris's umbilical actually gets caught on a manifold structure underwater, and it snaps. And he basically is lost on the bottom of the sea.

Did you guys have to go through any training, even though you're actors and you didn't have to really? Well, he did. He had to go through extensive, because he's actually one of the divers. There's two go down down and then one stays in the bell i was the guy who stayed in the bell so he and fen did quite a bit of underwater yeah yeah we did we did three weeks after i left you really you were underwater a while oh yeah for hours

you'd be under yeah you were long gone yeah i was living the good life you you know but no you had a you had a couple of rough days where it was just you and the bell, right? And it was like you without you guys. Yeah. That was a bummer. Yeah. So the, so the bellman kind of stays inside this, this egg shaped structure. And you've got, imagine just like this tiny cramped space and like hundreds of feet of umbilical. Cause basically as the divers go out, it's someone's got to be in the bell to like wrangle it. So there's Woody, like poor Woody's like learning how to do the job for real on the day because they like they really just dressed in everything of what it would look like. We had like real saturation divers that came in and consulted a lot.

Yeah. What was your never never was movie star blues a more appropriate song that was a genuine laugh that was that okay that was good that was good he's a pretty funny guy i gotta give it to him did you shoot in that chamber uh where you have to be on the on board the ship where you're what is it called the the set yeah the sat chamber right did you work together in that because i'm what i'm bringing up is it wasn't an actual set you know i mean i mean it was but it wasn't it was close quarters so you didn't have to breathe in helium and oxygen right the reason why i bring this up is when i worked with woody it was a huge sound stage but but his vegetarian farts were so horrible that he would shut down production.

I'm just wondering what happened with you. Teddy, vegan. Go ahead. Vegan. Sorry. Vegan. Which gives it an extra little pecan. They were vegan farts, to be fair.

You were really nice. I think you were really nice about it. No, that was back when I didn't chew my food. I see, I see. There was this one thing. We had an eating scene. We had an eating scene where, like, for whatever reason, like, their characters were all, you know, it's like all of the, you know, the know the tricks of the trade is like when you eat on camera you take a little tiny bites and you remember this and we were we were doing this eating scene and for whatever reason like Dave

was like wolfing down the food and he was like are you gonna finish that and then he's taking what yeah yeah yeah and I just remember like before every take this guy would just like heap stuff on his plate because i had to in the script like i had to finish whatever was on his plate so he would like put before he just had all this stuff on it i'm just watching it he's getting more frustrated by the minute this is take 12 because i'm not that good of an actor too it's take 12 right like oh god please don't make me i disagree with that statement by the way you're a great actor oh man pretty cool so do you want to back up how'd you get there how did i get there from harbin how do you say where you were born yeah harbin harbin. Harbin. Yeah. Yeah, one of the coldest cities in China.

Yeah, well, my parents immigrated to Canada. They were able to get scholarships to study electrical engineering at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. And then they were there for a number of years while I was being raised by my grandparents. And then I came over when I was four and a half, learned English, started school, became something of a gifted child. My parents were very hopeful that I would be, I would follow in their footsteps and become like an engineer or, you know, something that, that, you know, worthwhile, worthwhile, worthwhile. Yeah. But, but before you, so, but you were raised by your grandparents for how long? Until I was, yeah, until I was four and a

half. So that must've been wild for suddenly your parents aren't there and you're being raised by your grandparents. Well well i didn't i never knew my parents so actually my grandparents like my grandparents actually felt like they were my my guardians and i never i never grew up with like a notion of like i don't have a mom or a dad i was just like oh this is my my yeah yeah and my night and they're the ones who take care of me they feed me they clothe me there oh they do everything your parents left so your mom was in beijing yeah yeah yeah she i mean she was kind of yeah she was with me early on and then and then yeah i went to beijing and then went to and then immigrated um with my father and i really honestly just never felt like i i mean i i would

hear their voices on the phone, but I think trying to explain that to a four-year-old, like trying to, oh yeah, your parents aren't here. And these are your grandparents. They aren't your actual parents, but like, you didn't care, you know, at the end of the day, it was like, they're the ones who tucked you in at night. And that's all that mattered. Um, and then, and then one day when I'm about, yeah, four, four and a half, um, my dad shows up and he knocks on the door and he's like hey I'm here to take you to Canada to your new life we're ready for you and I was kind of like who are you it was it was very weird like he was like you know that feeling of like being a kid

and like a stranger is like hugging you and is like lifting you up and you're just like I feel like I'm supposed everyone's expecting me to like embrace this man as if I've known him my whole life. But he, you know, at that point he just felt like such a, such a stranger. Four and a half. That's it. Four and a half. And you have visceral memories of that. Yeah, very much so. Because I remember it was very traumatic being separated from my grandparents. You know, it was like like that was the only home that I knew. And I felt like if you had given me any sort of agency at that age of like, do you want to go with this man into a completely different part of the world?

I would have said no. I would have said, hell no, let me stay here. I love it here. There's nothing wrong with my situation. But that was always kind of the family plan was that I was going to join my parents in Canada. I'm obviously very grateful for that now. But, yeah, it was hard at the time. It must have been very hard to see then.

Yeah, yeah. So let's say when you got to Canada and now you're living with these two people you barely know who are your parents, did it take a while to adjust? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I feel like we're still adjusting in a lot of ways. I mean, you just, I think when you miss those years with each other, it was like getting adopted by my own biological parents, you know, and there was so much that we had to learn. But then also I was like adapting to life in Canada and learning English at a faster rate than they were because by the time I was seven or eight, I was already speaking better English. And my parents' English was pretty good. But, you know,

it's just when you're in the school system and you're listening to it every day, all of a sudden, it's like you're, you know, for all intents and purposes, you become Canadian. And then there becomes a culture clash of like, okay, now we're having trouble communicating and we don't have that kind of baseline intimacy of like being together from birth. And yeah, I mean, there were some really hard years there. And their imprint, your parents' imprint early on in their lives was pretty intense, I would imagine, in China. But they were kind of taskmasters and really expecting you to be the golden boy. Yeah. I mean, a lot, a lot of, a lot of kids from my generation were only children

because that was the policy at the time. And, uh, and so it was just like these one child would like hold the entire, and especially if like that family made the, you know, made the journey to, to, you know, immigrate to a different country. It was like that kid held the hopes and dreams and the expectations of like the entire family. And, uh, and that was, and that was me. And I feel like I did a pretty decent job for a, for a hot sec. And I went to college and I, and I studied accounting and got a job as an accountant. And then like, and then less than, uh, less than a year after graduating, I got, I got fired because I was a shit accountant well thank god yeah thank

you by the way this is the irony of life like you think the worst thing just happened to you and it's the best thing you have no clue that that was the best thing that happened oh yeah i thought my life was over yeah and but why why did you end up gravitating toward, you know, so you became like a stuntman actor, extra, whatever. Yeah, whatever I could kind of get my hands on. I think it was because. Wait, wait, sorry. Take me through that leap. All right.

I got fired. I'm no longer an accountant. I know. I'll go be a stuntman. Was that that clear to you or? No, no. I think I think what was clear to me was that um what i had been doing up until that point was not working and i mean i i should say i had i always had like a love of

movies and and as an only child with immigrant parents it was like you absorbed the world through TV and through movie. It felt like being at home was a very isolating experience because it just did not reflect the world that was out there, right? It was like you were stepping into a time capsule and all of a sudden you got two roommates from 1970s China. So in order to learn about the world, I was just watching movies and watching TV and wanting to just escape into those worlds, you know. And then I think the other part of it too is like my parents worked all the time, you know, I was kind of bullied at school. So I just kind of felt like I wanted to matter a little bit and I wanted to, you know, like have the spotlight on me for once. And so I, I had, you know, Toronto is a, I would say it's like a small ish. It's a bit of a satellite city when

it comes to film production, but you know, you shot there, like there's tons of stuff. You were in a movie called man from Toronto that shot in Toronto. Um, you know, a lot of stuff shoots out there and, and we, I would hear like these these stories of friends of friends who wound up as an extra on movie sets, and those stories would kind of trickle through the grapevine. And I remember I would get so jealous and so interested. I was just like, oh, man, I wish I knew someone in the industry. I wish I knew. I wish I had an in. in, you know, and, and, and I was on Craig's, I would like, when I was a miserable accountant, and the kind of the depths of my depression, I would, I would like go on Craigslist and type in,

you know, acting, like, find me an acting job on just for fun, really just to fantasize. And, and I came upon a listing for Guillermo del Toro's movie Pacific Rim, which was shooting in Toronto at the time at Pinewood Studios. And I actually I skipped work to be an extra on that set. Because I was so I just was so interested in it. It was like the listing was specifically calling for Asian actors, which I thought was a sign from the universe telling me that I had to do it. Because, I mean, I was like, when are they going to ever ask for Asian? Anyway, you never ask for Asian actors, which I thought was a sign from the universe telling me that I had to do it. Because, I mean, I was like, when are they going to ever ask for Asian? Anyway, you never ask for Asian actors. Right, right.

So, yeah, I skipped work, went on set, pretty much got found out right away, got fired like less than a month later. So, you know, very clearly. Oh, was that a part of what caused you to get fired? Yeah, definitely. I would say. I mean, I don't know. So it wasn't about being a shit accountant, definitely. Oh. I would say. I mean, I don't know. So it wasn't about being a shit accountant.

Well, there was all, yeah, I mean, there was also that. I did also fail the first of my exams. From that moment on, though, you're hooked and you're in the business. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I had no job, but I was like, I might as well give this a shot. It was never really meant to be a long-term thing, though. I got to say, as somebody who looked like me 12 years ago, God, I had no delusions that I would become,

all of a sudden I would have a TV show or my own movie. I was like, oh, I would love to be the Asian guy that is working at the convenience store that gets robbed. I would love to be that guy who, and that would be enough for me. And of course, you go in with that kind of thinking, you're like, maybe I'll just do it for a little while. And then you just get hooked. You know, I was pretty successful early on. I booked my first couple of speaking roles here and there relatively quickly. And then I just found myself on set.

And I think the more that you're exposed to it, the more that you meet people that are working in the industry, the more you just start to feel like, oh, maybe I could just, if only I could just hang in there a little bit longer, maybe I could do it. so tell me about that transition to finally you know yeah scrounging around to finally getting kim's convenience yeah and then that blowing up i mean it was like it i've said this before but it's like it's like i had been in credit card debt for years before. I just kind of had convinced myself that that was going to be my life, and I had made peace with it. I was okay with the life of a starving artist. As you know, we all have to make peace with at some point. Where we are, what we do, this is not the norm. We're extremely, extremely lucky. But, um, but yeah, I was so when I, when I got the,

when I got the call, I just, I just cried because I knew, you know, it was like lifting me out of credit card debt. I knew that I would no longer be the like black sheep of the family that I had become. Because as we were saying, like when all of these immigrant dreams rest on this one kid and then he gets himself fired before he turns 23 and then decides to become an actor. You've got like, you can imagine how my parents feel. And then you imagine how like the family in China feel where they're just like, well, he went fucking crazy. Wow. See, this is why you should never leave, you know? And you were aware of that in real time. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I basically, you know, I used to go back and visit quite often. And basically, what just happened is I stopped getting invited back. I just stopped getting invited back. My parents were like, you know, well, we'll see it. We're going, we're going back to China for a bit and we'll see in a few weeks. And there was no like, come with, or like, it was just like, yeah, you

stay, you stay here. We, you know, we would rather pretend you don't exist. Um, this is free Kim's convenience. Yeah. Yeah. And, and not to say that that was the only reason why my parents are speaking to me now. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt. It definitely doesn't hurt things. But no, we had kind of done a lot of work prior and they had in their own way made peace with it as well. But that was a huge step up for me.

It was great for our relationship because they were able to really see me make a living doing what I, what I loved and what I set out to do initially. And, and if that was the happy ending to my entire career, I would have been totally happy, you know? Um, but now I'm here with you guys. I don't think you would have been totally happy. You would have wanted to keep going. You know what I mean? You're right wanted to keep going. You know what I mean? You're right. You're right.

Like, I sometimes think, oh, if I had just been Woody on Cheers, like, that's pretty fucking great. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's hitting the lottery, you know? But on the other hand, you also think to yourself, well, I sure would have liked to have done something else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair enough. So then the transition from doing Kim's Convenience to when you got Shang-Chi, tell me about that.

So it's really hard for Canadian actors to actually start auditioning in the U.S. You got to get a visa. In order to get a visa, you got to get an attorney who you basically have to prove notability within your profession. You have to apply to be an alien of extraordinary ability. That's what the O-1 visa is called. So getting on Kim's and all the press that kind of came with that was enough to get me my visa. And once I got that, it was in about 2016, I started coming down to the States to audition

whenever I wasn't shooting Kim's Convenience. And it was a tough... You had an agent in LA? Yeah, I had a manager that I just had emailed out of the... I was like 3 a.m. sending out mass emails. And this one guy, Chris, responded. And he's still my manager today. Very, very great.

Yeah. Good for him. Best email that he ever responded to. We should be interviewing him. Yeah. Before you got that email. He's damn happy about responding to that email. Yeah, he's pretty happy.

He's pretty happy. And there's about 400 other people who are kicking themselves in their inbox. They're like, ah, shit, he did email me. So, but those few years were, yeah, it was hard because coming down to the U.S. with the exchange rate, we weren't making that much money off of Canadian television. It really wasn't a heavy, I was living, but it was by no means a lucrative venture at all.

I was just kind of middle class working actor still. But I was hemorrhaging money and just trying to be in L.A. as much as I could. Because again, yeah, I knew that, you know, I love my home country of Canada very much. But I knew that if I wanted to pursue, like if I would attain any sort of long-term sustainability for my career, I'd have to go to L.A. I'd have to make it in the States. And so I was just year after year coming out, auditioning. There were some close calls. As you guys probably know, being on a show, it can be golden handcuffs sometimes, right? Because you sign, you see a contract in front

of you. You've never seen that amount of money before in your life. And they're like, but we're going to need you for six years and you're not going to be able to do any other shows. And you sign on the dotted line and you're like, great. I just, just pay me. I don't fucking care. But then, but then you go down to LA and there's all these new shows that come up and they're like, well, we can make it work with your schedule. We just need your show to sign off on it.

And then there's, you know, business affairs from one end to the other. And then before you know it, that deal's evaporated. You don't have enough, you know, you're a, you know, my manager's calling me and being like, ah, they pulled the offer, they pulled the test deal. And so it was a lot of years of that. It was a lot of years of, of honestly, maybe just not being good enough and me still kind of working through my skills as an actor. Cause I was still very much learning as I was going, you know, I had no, I had no formal, I had a lot of formal accounting training, but very little formal acting training. And, um, and then, you know, 2019 rolled around and it was like, I just been, I just feel like been beating that door down and beating that door down for like so long. And finally it was starting

to crack. And in February I, I was on my first US network TV show. I was on Fresh Off the Boat on ABC. And then shortly after that, I shot like a little indie movie in San Francisco. And then three months later, I was Shang-Chi. So it was like once it started, once I started noticing that first crack, like it all just kind of finally came down. And that was the, so what was the audition process like for Shang-Chi? Yeah. So, um, I basically,

we got a, we got a call, um, to put these scenes on tape, like dummy scenes. They were scenes from Good Will Hunting. And, uh,

and nobody would tell me what it was for. And so I, I put, I, I did my best Matt Damon impression. impression i was like how do you like them apple and and i and i put it on tape and i sent it in and um and then we heard nothing for like a month and a half and and then by then knowing what it was for getting more and more of an idea yeah and then but but at that point i was like there no way. I'll throw my hat in the ring, but like, there's no fucking way they would pick me.

There's just, there's just too many talented people out there. They're going to pick someone. Stuff like that doesn't happen to me, you know. But then, but then, you know, yeah, about a month and a half later, and it was right around the time that we had a bit of a shooting break on Kim's Convenience. They were like, hey, are you going to be in LA anytime soon? We'd love for you to sit down with the director. And I was like, yeah, I booked my,

you know, booked my ticket out. You know, met Destin, who you've worked with. Yeah, it was just absolutely phenomenal. And then and then from there did kind of like a callback. And honestly, I feel like that callback was where I won the part because it was like Destin and I in a room together. We were working. At some point, I was kind of like still on book. And then he was like, hey, how about we just throw the scenes away and we just kind of vibe and improv. And I was like, okay, let's do it. And I very clearly remember I came out of that room and I was just like, I was hyperventilating. I think because I had done so well, I felt like I had done well enough. And I didn't want to, I couldn't admit it to anyone. I didn't want to say it out loud because I was afraid I jinx it. But I was like, I think I may have just won the

part. And yeah, few, few days after that, I get a, I get a test deal. And then I fly out to New York where they've like, you know, they, Marvel, it's a big company. You know, they set up this like full screen test with the wardrobe and the, you know, and the, you know, you're on a soundstage with a full camera crew. And Awkwafina was there as my scene partner. She'd like, you know, generously given her time because she was already cast at that point to do a chemistry read. And then I blacked out. Some things happened happened and then two days later i got the call wow that's great talk about stress when you got that call you must have just been over the moon huh yeah i i i cried i cried into my pillow for a long time it was like you never get more you're

not going to get more high stakes than that. You know, absolutely amazing. I just knew my entire life was about to change. And I, you know, it was in my like 500 square foot apartment in Toronto, just like sobbing. And then, and then yeah, four days later, they flew me to San Diego to Comic-Con. And then I was like announced in front of the whole world. And I was like on stage with Angelina Jolie. And I was wearing like these broken, you know, these like ripped jeans from Zara that were like $20. And just sharing the stage with all these like Marvel superheroes that I just, literally I just saw because Endgame had just come out. You know, it was like the biggest movie ever.

And all of a sudden, I was just there with them. So it was fucking surreal. And because of that announcement at Comic-Con, you just blew up, right? As far as people recognizing you or knowing you or... I mean, yeah, it was that. That was what I would say was like a small blow up. And then when the movie came out and hit, you know, in the middle of the pandemic for it to do as well as it did, it became such a conversation because, you know, the industry was struggling.

And, you know, we were struggling to figure out whether we would all survive the pandemic. And the movie ended up being like the highest grossing domestic movie at that point until spider-man came and kicked our ass but but so that was in 2020 the end 2021 so we shot in 2020 and then 2021 uh september it came out so i have some can i now you're famous now're pretty much current. You've gone off and made more movies since that. Did you lose something with fame? Did you lose, I mean, I saw your interview with Kevin Hart, which was a great interview, but you know, it is a double-edged sword.

Yeah. You know, it's, I mean, it's great. It's wonderful. You know, it's your dream, but you do pay for it's i mean it's great it's wonderful you know it's your dream but you do you pay for it yeah you pay for it you have to be willing to let some things go yeah a lot of people i found could uh put their uh you know fears of being abandoned by you on you and it's your fault you're not going to be the same. Oh, he's changed. Did you get any of that? I have great, I have,

and continue to have great people around me. I believe to be the best friends and family in the world. You know, especially like my parents and I, I feel like have just been to hell and back. And we're stronger than ever. I love them so much. And have a really, I think, thorough understanding of their journey to immigrate. And really all of that being so that I could have the ability to pursue life on my terms. Which was an incredible gift that they gave me.

And so I think in my personal life, I've been very lucky in that I don't think that too much has changed there. You need the friends that'll give you shit at the end of the day, you know? And my friends give me a lot of shit. I seem to have no limit of that. It seemed like, could we put a cap? No, but so how did your parents respond?

They must have, when Shang-Chi came out and was such a over the top success how were they you know how did they take it my dad retired my dad retired which is great it was a sure i mean i think before there was no there would be no conversation of retiring at his he retired at 60 and um and you know i know that he would still be working today if I hadn't gotten that part. Oh, just to support you, you mean? Yeah, I think he would, you know, there was always a sense of like, he would be putting squirreling money away just in case I needed it. His loser son quit another accounting job. Yeah, his loser son, exactly, exactly, exactly. So all of that, yeah, I've just been really lucky with my family and all that.

But where I feel like I've lost something is maybe just the, you know, in just the bigness and the speed at which it's kind of happened for me, in the sphere of like the social media of it all, I think is that I think I've lost the ability, you know, it's kind of like you lose control of your own narrative in a way. Because you're just kind of, you're out there. And I think people feel like you're out there. And so they feel like, based on what they see, or what they read that they know you. And so it entitles them to give opinions and say things that are completely not true and based in reality. And I think for a while, I really struggled with that because I came from a grassroots TV show where every night when the episodes would air, we would like tweet with our fans and everyone was so kind and so great. And it was, it felt like a small community,

you know, and everyone was supportive of each other, but there's something about the bigness of, you know, the last couple of things that, that I've, I've in. And that comes with like a global awareness. But you know, that awareness doesn't mean that every single person is going to take the time to know you and who you are before passing some sort of... So you know, whereas before I would love to like read everything that was said about me and like, you know, the internet really was like a place of support now it's like a very different different place and so i feel like a lot of what i have to what i feel like i have to do is you know as someone coming into fame in this era is like learn to step back from that and tune that out which ain't a bad thing.

No, no. Mental health wise. No, I think it's the best decision I'll make. Feels like you were, how you were raised, the whole, the immigrant, the child who everybody put their hopes into. Your shoulders were learning how to be broad at a pretty early age so that this, with the movie, you know, the first superhero Asian character, all of that stuff where people lay all this kind of weight on you, feels like you were almost trained to be able to handle

that amount maybe the yeah the chosen yeah the chosen one yeah maybe no i i i mean i feel i feel like many things have happened in my life in in such i mean i don't i don't think i'm a particularly religious person but i i do feel like at time like you know just the way in which my life has unfolded it's impossible to go through what i went through and not feel like in some like there's just some sort of, there's something weird about the timing of everything and, and how everything in my life has come full, full circle in a way. Like I remember, you know, I was, I was, I was on my like college, you know, hip hop dance team, like doing dance, you know, uh, competing with these other colleges

doing dance. And my parents are like, what the fuck are you doing? None of this will ever matter in your life ever. Like, this is so useless. Why are you wasting your time? And then I get cast in a Greta Gerwig movie where I'm out there, you know, doing choreography to an eight count. And like, you know, it's just that there's just been a such so many of those full circle moments that it's just impossible to like really wrap my head around. So I'll say I've been very lucky in going through what I've gone through. of living with some sort of burden of expectation my whole life, which for better or for worse, I guess, prepared me for whatever this is. I don't know.

I mean, that's what a superhero is, right? I mean, carrying the burden of saving the world or the universe or whatever. It's kind of all very perfect. Now you're cornering me and forcing me to say i am a superhero which i did you know if you must if you put the words in my mouth i'm not the one yeah you're saying it i'll take it let's have one of those laughs yeah by the way that's fucking great that was my first real attempt that's a fun one right that's good fun right what what do you really perfected the jaw movement as well oh yeah which is that

okay this may be premature but i remember early, I was very lucky that early on in the Cheers fame, you know, like about third, fourth year or whatever. Somehow I realized or someone wise told me or whatever that you can feel the energy coming your way because people know you all of a sudden. Everybody knows your name. Yeah. Damn, that was good. I deserved it. coming your way that because people know you all of a sudden everybody knows your name yeah and damn that was good i deserved it i deserved it that's not a bad joke that was good but anyway being an actor celebrity with a lot of attention is like being a four-year-old in a room full of adults who are all focusing on that child. You can spin a kid out like that if everybody's going, oh, look at that little boy.

And it's the same thing, I think, being a celebrity. All that energy can really fuck you up if you just absorb it. Somebody told me, or I, whatever, that it's power. That energy is energy. So if you use it and deflect it into something you care about, you can make use of. For me, it was oceans. So actors are the ones usually who stand in front of the tent and say, hey, thank you for watching. Cheers.

Yes, let me sign an autograph. But will you please come in and meet this marine marine biologist who you know she has something amazing to tell you i survived much better dealing with fame knowing i had something to do with it yes to make use of yes he's got something to do with it he makes a freaking mountain of money ah i told you my dad retired i mean that's uh you're gonna have to support your parents ultimately but i think it's premature i don't mean to be saying what are you doing you know or anything like that but does that ring a bell or does that make sense or yeah yeah i think how do you deal with it is what i mean because it is a crap load of energy coming your way. Yes, yes. I think it kind of turns, it can turn anybody into a narcissist, right?

Like it, because all of a sudden you're, you are the center of the world. And then, and then you're right at the moment that you start buying into it. It's like, it's over for you. You really have to, I think, you know, in my very, very short time in the public eye, I think I've started, I've really realized that, you know, that will come and go and the eye of the world will come and go. But, you know, what you, yeah, exactly what you can, what you can do to, to be a conduit in a moment towards whether it's an idea or a cause or something, you know, for, for me early on, at least like this, there was pretty simple for me, like even just existing as an Asian, Asian American person in the public eye and, and being, you know, even like somebody who could talk on press and, and not be like, you know,

and, and I, I say this with the most amount of love because I feel like I idolize people like Jackie Chan and Jet Li, but they were a different type of Asian character that I think was a lot more palatable to Western sensibilities of like, oh, here's like an eastern mystic martial artist and who doesn't really speak english you know and and and i i was you know i really just wanted to be the guy that could shoot shit on you know on on camel or whatever and sit down and tell a joke and that there there was something even like revolutionary about that um so in the beginning, it was really about just the representation of it. And now I feel like, as an extension of just being more globally known, I suppose, is focusing and really trying to connect with organizations that have a global reach. So I do a lot of work with UNICEF,

UNICEF Canada, for example. I love talking about mental health because mental health is something that my community in particular doesn't have a lot of familiarity with. When you look at our parents, a lot of whom came from extremely traumatic situations, didn't feel like they had any of the tools available to really process what was happening to them. And so a lot of it became, they took it out on their kids, on us. And so we carried a lot of that generational trauma and we in turn became really fucked up. And so without really hitting on the head too much, it's like my journey into therapy has been really awesome. I want to share that as much as I can so that people like me feel like those conversations

are normalized. And so I've been doing a lot of work with an organization called Culture City, for example, which is all about invisible illness, right? All about the diseases that afflict us that you would not know walking down the street. And, you know, what I really, you know, what I think is true is that everyone's dealing with their stuff. You know, we all put on a brave face to step out into the world, you know, but we're all in to some degree, broken in our own way and trying to heal and that's okay and um and wanting to share that message with the world too so among other things you are you are a rock star you really

are you're a rock star you really are should we should we talk about barbie oh man what's that ride been like it's uh it's i've never worked with a director like greta and i think you know you know in in all the and every director teaches you something different i think greta taught me so much and and not just greta but like being on set with margo and ryan it was just like aces it was an all-star cast and everyone you know will ferrell kate mckinnon these like snl pros that are just so fucking funny yeah and every you know it's like the every take is completely different but so usable and um it's i mean i i think i i take a lot of those memories with me and i feel like it just made me so much of a better actor greta is so so amazingly collaborative in how the script was

the movie was in the page right from day one we read that script and we were like holy shit this movie is going to be huge, you could tell but then the fact that she could have that distinctive

vision and still be so wonderful and so collaborative on the day and so receptive to ideas, I think made me realize like you, you, you can, you don't have to be an asshole in Hollywood. Like there's no, like, you know, just because you're an auteur or like, you know, just because you're, yeah. Like an, an, a director's director of a certain caliber, like that somehow entitles you to be a terrible person. Yeah, listen to this advice. You know, great.

I'm, well, never mind. No, I can't. He's the nicest guy. Yeah, I mean, I know it. I know it. I mean, again, we knew it would be big. We didn't realize, I mean,

I think what has been just so incredible is like seeing the Barbenheimer of it. These two movies could exist simultaneously and could just like energize the industry in such a way that like, you know, we're coming off of a, of a summer where like a lot of movies where I feel like on the page or in the room felt like, this is an ace. This is an ace in the hole. This is going to get us our 500 million, whatever.

We're failing. And so I feel like there's a lot of uncertainty in the industry about, okay, what works now? What will get people out? And as as it turns out it's just two really great original movies from like solid filmmakers you know and so when you say original you mean not created by ai yeah yeah yeah i feel like barbie it was is is the one movie and ryan gosling said this at one point it was he was like barbie Barbie is proof that like AI could never write that. It's so weird. Because it's new and original.

And original and like, you know, and Greta's storytelling is just so unique that like, just a movie like that could not exist unless there was a person,

a weird eccentric person behind it, just, you know, writing the page. You can rip it off. AI can rip it off and then make a less good one. A less good. You can make a lot of copies.

Totally emotionally empty version of it. Which, you know, some people do value emotional emptiness. But, you know. No, it's okay to live that way. Just, you know, art should make make you feel you don't want to over emotion i feel uh stupid slightly embarrassed and you know saying so how are you paying back how are you going to use all of this attention coming your way because the truth is after sitting here for a while it feels like you walk in the door.

You just walk in the door and you're giving back because you are all, you know, you are, shit, now I'm going to get it over my head. But you are an example to so many people who have been cut out of this industry for so long you're uh an example of grace as you walk in the door you're all these examples that are changing people's lives just by you being you walking in the door so i felt like my question was an implication of hey you need to give back kind of thing and i that's so full of shit so no please accept my apology and know that i do see you

but first of all ted you're welcome and uh thank you and you're welcome everybody could you do me a favor and walk in one more time because it wears off once you sit down strut in no i just want to ask you one question before we wrap this up about your debut single Don't I didn't know about this you never told me I didn't want you to make fun of me no I would never but what about it

what about it I guess I fancy myself a singer sometimes I know you do too I don't know about that. This guy's a good Elvis impersonator. I'm sure he's regaled you with many Elvis impersonations over the years.

And what was the music like? I had an opportunity to be in the Shang-Chi soundtrack. So I have a song on the Shang-Chi soundtrack with a record label called 88 Rising, which is like an Asian-American-focused record label. And I don't know how I weaseled my way onto the soundtrack, but I was like,

I kind of was just hanging around the studio being like, hey, what you guys doing? Do you mind if I step in there? And then somehow it came out with a song called Hot Soup which was a cool little thing but it had a couple million streams on Spotify and then again weaseled

my way more and was like so we should probably keep doing this right? You want to make an album maybe? The people at the label were kind enough to say yeah sure fuck around, learn your sound and that's kind of what I've been doing for the last year, um, just on my spare time. And, and, and with the, with the single that came out was just, you know, now that it's out in the world,

I kind of feel like I want to make more. And it's, it's that thing of like growing up, I, I would just like see people acting and, and I just want to do it. Whenever I saw someone doing something interesting, I'd be like, I want to do it somehow. And just watching people perform live, there's such a magic around it. I'm dying to do it, and I need songs in order to do it. So I'm going to keep making music as long as the label will let me and I haven't been booted off yet

and hopefully at some point I'll play something for you and everyone. That'd be cool. Great, man. That's so cool. I can't wait to listen to it. I didn't even know about it until I read this thing. Read the brief. Yeah.

What a pleasure. What a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming, buddy. Thank you, man. That was Simu Liu, everybody. I am so happy that I got to spend an hour and a half or whatever it was with him. He's an amazing man and a kind of an effortless ambassador, even if he didn't want to become one. He is that, and he's remarkable. And I really, chuffed is a great word, chuffed that I got to hang out with him. So anyway, thank you, Simu. Special thanks to our friends at Team Coco and to you for listening.

I truly love getting to share these episodes with you every week. So it means a lot that you're here. Once again, tell a friend about us and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. If you're on Apple Podcasts, maybe give us a, oh, I don't know, great rating and review. We would appreciate it. If you prefer to Apple Podcasts, maybe give us a, oh, I don't know, great rating and review.

We would appreciate it. If you prefer to watch me and Woody in high definition, oh, see, just reading this, I think that's a bad idea. But, you know, go for it. You can watch full episodes of this podcast on Team Coco's YouTube channel. So check us out sometime. Maybe put a little bassling over the part of the TV that my face is on. It helps. It helps. I will see you next time where everybody knows your name. Thank you.

You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson, Sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Liao. Executive producers are Adam Sachs, Colin Anderson, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Federovich is our supervising producer. Our senior producer is Matt Apodaca. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez. Research by Alyssa Grahl. Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Batista.

Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Gann, Barry Steenburgen, and John Osborne. Special thanks to Willie Navarie. We'll have more for you next time where everybody knows your name.